My family and I were blessed to be in St. Louis for Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s beatification on September 24th. It was a great grace to participate, even in some small way, in this historic moment for the Catholic Church in America.
Engaging in the Mass of Beatification, the press conference, and other surrounding events—and reflecting on those events for more than a week—has provided me with some important lessons about Sheen, the Catholic Faith, and its impact on America. Some, I had grasped intellectually, as the teaching of the Church. But, as I have ruminated on those days, these truths of the Catholic Faith are incarnate in a new way. So, I share seven prominent, palpable lessons (though I’m sure there are others, which I’d be glad to hear).
1. The Church in America is excited, vibrant, and growing.
The days and events in St. Louis provided an inspiring display of stateside Catholicism. Bishops, priests, deacons, seminarians, consecrated religious, popular evangelizers and teachers were common sights. People of all ages and myriad ethnic heritages revealed the universality of the Church in America. The number of families who brought their young children, even babies, was astonishing; and so was the number of children bearing the name Fulton. Clearly, this man—his teaching, his media reach, and, most importantly, his sanctity—has impacted Catholic life in America.
Such impact is felt particularly in the renaissance of evangelical and catechetical methods along with apostolates that provide great formation in knowing the Faith, living the Faith, and handing it on to others. On top of the extensive devotion to Sheen, the stateside Church has a growing devotion to other servants of God, venerables, and blesseds on the path to full canonization who exhibit the vibrance and grit of the Church in North and Central America. Based on what I saw, the future of the Faith is bright and solid.
2. There are so many other unique and transformative interactions with Bl. Fulton Sheen.
I have been tacitly acquainted with Bl. Fulton since I heard Scott Hahn quote him as I was journeying toward the Catholic Faith, and since I read his introduction to The Confessions of St. Augustine (Modern Library Edition, 1949) just after my reception into full communion. I became a bit more familiar as I taught American history, particularly Catholic history in America. Years later I wrote a book about his intellectual engagement with American culture. I have asked for his intercession almost daily for six years.
I feel that I have an intimate connection with this heavenly friend, yet every person who attended that Mass—and so many who were unable to attend—have unique stories of interaction with the blessed archbishop, both when he was alive and since he left this mortal coil. That’s why more than fifty thousand people chose to make pilgrimage to St. Louis. Therefore, it is most appropriate to thank God for my own encounter with Bl. Fulton, and thank God that he has impacted so many other lives. After all, the most important interaction—and action—Sheen would want is for all of us to have a transformative encounter with Jesus.
3. I have to rely on God’s providence rather than my own manufactured movement.
I was excited to encounter lots of people in St. Louis—parishioners from my diocese, old friends from the world of ministry and teaching, publishers, faculty, and administration from my alma mater, and so on. I got to see and converse with only a handful of those people, but those moments were packed with incredible blessings. Beyond that, I was privileged to make quite a few new acquaintances by whose stories and enthusiasm for Sheen I was blessed. All that is to say: the Lord arranged those encounters, and He may have reserved the others for later occasions, because He intended to provide a specific grace for me and those others. I have to learn to trust that the Holy Spirit will move, opening doors and highlighting connections I need to receive today’s grace, just today’s.
4. The eternity of heavenly worship will be…eternal.
The duration of the Beatification Mass was three and a half hours. That length was determined by a number of factors: the epic processional, speeches about Sheen’s holiness, and—especially—the logistics of Holy Communion. After I had received the Eucharist, I still had roughly twenty-five or thirty minutes to pray and meditate. During those moments, I realized that this will be the same dynamic in Heaven. Worship will not end. We will spend eternity contemplating what God, through Jesus Christ, has done for the whole Church and each of us in it. That elicits a change in perspective about how I can savor extended liturgies. If I want to be in Heaven, I should probably get used to it!
5. Bl. Fulton’s pattern of the Holy Hour is probably the right one.
In his Vespers homily, Bishop Barron highlighted the way Bl. Fulton typically spent his daily holy hour:
Though he [Sheen] said he often brought a writing pad to these sessions in case a good idea for a homily or article might come to him, these holy hours were not really times of achievement or accomplishment. They were an opportunity to bask in the presence of the Lord Jesus. Here’s how he puts it, and I am quoting, “Looking into a sunset, the face takes on a golden glow. Looking at the Eucharistic Lord for an hour transforms the heart in a mysterious way, as the face of Moses was transformed after his companionship with God on the mountain.”
Indeed, I have noticed the same thing happening in my weekly (if God allows it) holy hour. Yes, I take a book of spiritual reading and my journal and a pen. In recent months and years, though, the Lord has led me to put those things aside because, even in front of Jesus, I cannot manufacture my own notoriety or success. Instead, I only bask in the radiating grace that emanates from the Blessed Sacrament. “I look at Him, and He looks at me,” as St. John Vianney’s humble parishioner said. I ask Him to shed His light into the darkest corners of my soul; to bear His strength into the areas of my life that are weakest. That is the only fruitful and effective way.
6. Evangelization, catechesis, and mission all proceed together, mutually reinforcing each other.
This point was always present in Sheen’s teaching. Thus, Bishop Robert Barron highlighted it in his homily at Sacred Vespers on the eve of the Beatification Mass; and Cardinal Tagle made it central to the message of his homily at the Mass. The latter quoted the only speech Blessed Fulton Sheen gave at the Second Vatican Council, noting that the theologian and professor, the great communicator, chose to exhort his brother bishops to remember their mission to the poor. Sheen preached:
Put your finger on the 30th parallel, and run it around a globe. What do you find? Practically all the prosperity is above the 30th parallel, and the greater part of the poverty is below. …As only a wounded Christ could convert a doubting Thomas, only a Church wounded by poverty can convert a doubting world.
This speech obviously left a deep and lasting impression on the prelates of the Church and their pastoral practice. This is evident in none other than St. John Paul the Great, who vociferously defended the dignity of the poor, and even Cardinal Tagle in our own day, who is particularly known for staunch calls, similar to Sheen’s, for evangelization by works of mercy.
7. There are still people—Catholics, even—who do not know about Sheen.
After he figured out where I was going, my Uber driver to the Mass venue remarked, “Oh, there’s something big going on there today,” but he clearly did not know exactly what. That does not prove, logically, that he had not heard of Sheen, but it might be easy to make that assumption. In any case, there are people who still have not heard of Sheen. So, we should introduce them to America’s newest blessed. That way, this “loyal son of the Church”—as St. John Paul the Great called him—can guide them toward a deeper encounter with Jesus. The saints are great intermediaries for the evangelical mission of the Church!
Since my family has returned from St. Louis, there have been many more graces emanating from this experience, which I do not have space to share. At the same time, life has given us a proverbial punch in the face. This, however, is an opportunity to connect even more deeply with Bl. Fulton who endured so much of life’s suffering with great verve and joy. He did so simply because he knew it was a path to connect more deeply with Jesus. With his intercession, hopefully I can see through that same lens…that life truly is worth living.
Image by Nheyob via Wikimedia Commons
